Ghost
by Ava Cabot
Summary: Can you still feel threatened by a ghost? Kathy Stabler thinks so. AU fic.


Ava Cabot

Ghost

A Law and Order: SVU fic

Summary: Can you still feel threatened by a ghost? Kathy Stabler thinks so. Olivia Benson's ghost still haunts hers and Elliot's lives, because they both can't let go.

Disclaimer: Dick Wolf know's what's his. I know what's mine.

Can you still threatened by a ghost? I believe that you can. It depends on several circumstances, however. If you don't even know the person who haunts you, fear may simply replace insecurities. No, my house isn't haunted by someone I don't know. My husband and I are haunted by a single ghost's memory, unable to do anything without her there. A woman's memory plagues my life. Not only can my husband not move on, but I can't either. It's an obsession between the two of us, it seems. He wants to her to come back, and I want her to stay away.

Olivia Benson has been dead for nine months, and my husband still can't get over it. She took my husband's spirit and very being when she was murdered. She left him a hollow man.

She stole him away. All I was left with was an empty shell of a man.

That horrible day she was shot seems like a distant time ago, although the memory will always be fresh for Elliot. Captain Cragen made the call to me that day, saying that there'd been a shooting where Elliot and Olivia had been chasing a suspect. He didn't know if there were any causalities yet. Thunder moaned around the area as a prelude to an upcoming storm, as I frantically drove down to the scene, my heart racing faster than I was driving.

But when I arrived there, I saw him alive amidst the chaos. Ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars swarmed the scene. There was blood everywhere, making me feel nauseated with each step.

Someone had died...but it wasn't Elliot. My heart nearly broke when his broken stare waved over me, his bright eyes now completely shattered. There was no more life in him. Something—or someone—had taken it.

It was then that I saw Olivia lying motionless in his arms, her blood seeping all over his coat and shirt. Her eyes were closed already, her face pale with death. The entire squad was there, crouched over Elliot and her body. I walked over slowly, wringing my hands worriedly. Elliot didn't notice as I bent down beside him. His lips were moving silently, repeating a single phrase like a broken record.

"She took the bullet for me."

The bloody scenario unfolded in gritty colors before me. The worst thing was that I could picture it exactly. I didn't want to—but I was.

Like any other day, the two of them had been chasing down a suspect, wanted for a heinous crime. What they wouldn't expect would be the gun in his jacket. They didn't know he would pull it on them and threaten to send both straight to cop hell.

I could see them draw their own weapons, prepared to shoot if necessary in self-defense. They'd been trained in this kind of situation. Nothing out of the ordinary should have happened.

But then the suspect would aim towards Elliot. Their hands would be resting against the trigger of their guns, ready to shoot in a heartbeat.

He'd fire. The bullet would pop out the gun lightening-fast, in a straight line towards one detective. Elliot.

Time would then begin to run startlingly slow, the bullet ripping through the air, on a direct path to Elliot's heart. But then something unexpected would happen again. Olivia would scream for him to move, and dive in the bullet path when he didn't. Metal would sear through her clothes and skin. Blood would spurt from a single gunshot wound.

Instead of tearing through Elliot's precious organs, the bullet would lodge into hers. She'd fall back, bursts of blood flowing through the air. Elliot's eyes would widen with anger and utter loss, as he fell to his knees to catch her. Her head would snap back from the impact, hands fluttering helplessly as her life began to quietly slip away. Blood would creep from her mouth, flowing in a crooked path down her chin and neck. When I arrived, that same blood would cover his mouth. For a fleeting moment, I thought it'd gotten there through a forbidden last kiss.

In a jealous rage that plagues me even today, I wanted to know what her dying words to him were. I wondered if she told Elliot that she loved him. Most of all, I wanted to know if he loved her back. Did they love each other? Had they ever shown that love? Flashes of him fucking her ran wildly through my imagination. Did he rip off her clothes in a fury to see what was underneath? Did he kiss her from neck to breast to belly in a single motion? Did he do her on the desk, the interrogation room, or in an alley behind the stationhouse?

I quickly ran those hallucinations out of my mind when I sat beside him at the scene, or when EMT's gave on CPR and pronounced her DOA. Elliot remained motionless at those words, everything and anything failing to penetrate his shell. He remained kneeling on the ground, arms held tight around her. He didn't look up as I approached him quietly. His body was shivering in the cold, droplets of blood splattered to the ground with each shake. Wet tears mingled with the patches of blood on his cheek. He rocked slightly as I knelt beside him, trying to be the support he desperately needed.

"I'm sorry," I said softly, hugging his shoulder. John and Fin stood stonily off to the side, shaking with quiet anger. Casey wept on Captain Cragen's shoulder, her shoulders heaving up and down in a rapid motion. I could hear her whispering, "Why? Why?" I'm sure Elliot was asking himself that same question: Why would anyone want to kill Olivia? Everyone loved her...

In the back of my mind, I noticed, with a guilty twinge, that I was the only one not crying. It's not that I wasn't mourning her loss.

I just couldn't cry. No tears wanted to fall from my eyes, no part of me wanted to weep for her death. I didn't know why...but I desperately wanted to.

A livewire shock shot through me when I saw the blood all over his lips, spread like dark stain across his mouth. At this moment, I desperately wanted to know if there had been more to their partnership besides deep friendship. Namely, sex.

I know I was being selfish as Cragen gently pried Olivia's body from Elliot's arms. A moan escaped him as Cragen lifted the body into his arms, holding Olivia like a dead child. Her arms were flung helplessly to the side, her face frozen into a strange, serene state. Cragen cradled Olivia's head briefly, refusing to bite back tears. Normally he's a cold and stubborn man. Today he was deeply saddened.

That day still burns in my memory. Elliot never recovered, and he probably never will. For a week after the funeral, he shut himself up in the station, coming home for only an hour in the dead of night. I could hear him clunking around in the kitchen, putting himself in an alcoholic shield, shutting all pain and feeling and sinking into an awkward numbness. Nothing would break that shield, not even words from Cragen, John, Fin, or even myself. And because nothing would bring Olivia back from the grave, he'd continue to reason that the pieces of his life would never be reassembled.

I know he held onto her badge and gun for weeks. He still needed to see her picture, hold her gold shield, and touch the gun that still had a lingering trace of her scent. He couldn't let go...he wouldn't let go...

The funeral was even worse, taking place on a drizzly March morning, the sky pouring rain in mourning for her loss. Elliot clung to his NYPD family, a broken man who would bury his heart with her coffin.

A black and white photo of the startlingly beautiful woman sat alone amidst the overflowing bouquets. She was frozen in time through that picture, taken only a month before her murder. She'd never grow old or ugly. Not that anyone would have expected her to do so. Olivia Benson is—was—the kind of woman was destined to remain stunning forever. Her mother had been striking as well. Olivia was beautiful in the way that made men want to fuck her and women hate or desperately want to be her. I wasn't sure which kind of woman I was.

I know that I longed to have Elliot look at me the same way he gazed at her. The longing in his eyes...it showed how deeply he cared for her. But was it just friendship that he kindled for her? Or was it lust? Obsession? Or just wanting something that he could never have?

Because Olivia had no family to speak of, the three remaining detectives shared the role of chief mourner. Elliot remained silent throughout most of the service, shaking violently the entire time. Cragen delivered a teary-eyed eulogy, speaking of Olivia as if she were his own daughter. After all, a member of their tight-knit family was dead.

The pallbearers waited momentarily before piling the dirt on her coffin, pausing just for a moment so that Elliot could approach the hole. A white rose in his hand nearly matched the pallid shade of his face. "Bye, Liv," he said softly, dropping the flower in and stumbling back to Cragen and myself.

A bitter wind swirled around all the mourners, howling in sync with everyone's tears. Everyone's, except mine. We watched hole slowly fill with cold dirt, Elliot's hand tightly clamped in mine.

People must have pitied the way I kept living, pretending to be semi-ignorant of the situation between them. I hated how he spent all his hours with her. But what could I have done? I couldn't empathize with Elliot the way she could. I didn't see what they saw daily. She understood him on a completely different level, one that I couldn't even hope to reach.

And now she was gone. Death came quickly in the form of murder.

Should I feel some sort of relief, though? My one-true rival is gone. But was she even my rival? The word implies that we both hated each other. The frustrating thing is she probably pitied me. She felt sorry for me, because I was the abandoned wife whose husband didn't look at her anymore.

Olivia was almost like a second maternal figure to our children, occasionally coming to their birthday parties and Christmas dinner, dropping off gifts and passing along wise advice for the future. I resented how strongly the four admired her. Now she wouldn't be there anymore, and the kids, even older now, would be crushed without her strong presence.

For weeks after the funeral, Elliot and I settled into a bizarre schedule that we still haven't changed. I accepted that he would rarely be home anymore. I slowly watched my husband waste away, pieces of him dying as the months passed by. I didn't know how to help him heal the wounds that Olivia's death had caused. I didn't know how to help him cope at all.

It's been nine months since the death of Olivia Benson, and my husband will never move on. And he probably won't change back to how he was before. I shouldn't deny that. After all, his best friend, lover, soul mate, lust, or whatever Olivia was to him had died taking a bullet for him. I don't think they even knew what Olivia was in his life. They could never really define a line between friend and close confident. The line for that was vague. But one thing had been established: she was a solid force in his life. With her gone, he had crumbled.

They were closer than any other set of partners in the entire NYPD. They could read each other's thoughts and finish the other's sentences. They'd trade lunches without even thinking, and leave no secrets within. The connection between them was surrealistic, almost. They were maybe too perfect for each other. They had a bond that was seemingly unbroken. But maybe that connection is still there, even today. Who knows?

Taking the bullet for him is what might be eating at him the most. The fact that Olivia might still be alive if the events of that day had gone differently. Maybe the suspect would've been DOA instead of her. His partner had died protecting him. Elliot's always been known for being a fiercely stubborn person, but that changed after that day. Now he's more reckless, daring Fate to take him away too. He's testing the hand of death, wondering when the time for him to die will come.

The final part of Olivia's death was the suspect's trial. Not only was he still facing the original rape charges, but the murder of a police officer now hung heavily around his neck. There didn't seem to be a single supporter of his in the courtroom. Even his lawyer didn't believe he should win. After only two days in court, the jury returned with a unanimous verdict. He was convicted on all charges. There was a silent sense of justice when the paper was read, seeming to comfort everyone except Elliot. To him, nothing would ever ease away the pain of losing her.

He finished cleaning out her locker a few days ago. No one objected to keeping the remnants untouched for months. Everything is in a box in the corner of our bedroom, haunting me every time I enter. It's like she's glowering at me from beyond the grave. It would've been worse if Elliot showed any affection towards me, whether it was a simple kiss or sexual. She was there all the time, invading my life and sanity. Anytime Elliot looked at me, I'm sure he wanted to see her. Every time he kissed me, it was her. Every time he touched me...her. Every damn time.

The shrink he's been seeing called me yesterday. Apparently, he skipped the last three sessions. The shrink wanted to know if I knew the reason why. Politely, I told him no. My husband was a great puzzle to me, and I would never figure him out. My guess was that instead of attending counseling, Elliot's been going to Olivia's grave, clinging to one of the last things of hers he has. I wish that therapy would help him recover. I think that everyone around him is at a complete loss on how to repair the broken Elliot Stabler that is here.

He's been going to the shooting sight almost weekly for the past nine months, tearing down anything that's been put there in her memory. Pictures, flowers, cards, signs, even stuffed animals have been left as tribute to a fallen detective. I asked him why he did that. He blinked at me, and said shakily, "Because we made a promise years ago. If one of us went down in the line of duty, we wouldn't let that spot be covered by memorabilia." That promise was made so long ago, back when Olivia was still fairly new and vulnerable. He promised her he'd never turn his back and let her fall. Not all promises can be kept, though.

I sometimes wonder what life would have been like if the situation had been altered somehow. What if Elliot had been single and he could have had his pick between Olivia and me. Would he choose me even after seeing her first? Or what if he had married Olivia, and I was his single and sexy partner? Would he have wanted me like he did her? I wish I knew.

And yet another scenario: what if Elliot had been the one to die all those months ago? Would Olivia be just as broken as Elliot is today? Probably. She'd be locked up in her apartment, a complete wreck. Would she dare to follow him to the grave soon after, committing suicide to be reunited? No...not Olivia. She'd be strong and deal with her grief. She'd be there whenever the kids or I needed her. She was always there. She still is always here.

Now I'm tired of all these what-if's and second-guessing myself. I'm not completely sorry for the death of Olivia. If people hate me for that, then so be it. I'm tired of living in that woman's shadow. I won't be content with being the 'other woman' in Elliot's life. I'm not going to wait up nervously every night wondering where my husband is and whom he's with. I'm not going to stand for it. No more.

But these words would apply if Olivia were still here, though. She isn't. But if she's gone, then why do I still be threatened by her? I feel that if I admit these feelings to someone, they'll mock me for being petty and selfish and full of vanity. A good woman is dead, and I'm worrying about her ghost? What kind of person am I?

Her death may have changed Special Victims forever, but it still didn't free me from her presence. Olivia's still here. I can still feel her here. She's never going to leave. I will be haunted by a woman who I shouldn't have felt threatened from. Look at me, now. Who's the crazy one, exactly? Is it Elliot, torn with grief and loss, or me, paranoid of a Olivia's ghost.

Olivia Benson was murdered nine months ago. And neither Elliot or I can let go.

A/N: Never have written a death fic before...closest I've come is post-Loss A/O stuff. I've always wanted to write a Kathy fic too. She's a fascinating character in the show, one that never really seems to get her voice heard. Here's my stand on one AU situation.


End file.
